Blogging about Loughborough: local history, past and current events, places to visit! Basically, anything that's interesting to me and I think might be of interest to you! Articles are usually posted at 8pm on Sundays.

Sunday, 31 December 2017

I finally finished my local history course in July, and the results eventually came through in November!! I've been more involved in the Old Rectory Museum of late, and started a blog and a Twitter feed for them, as well as sending in reports of activities and meetings to the Loughborough Echo. I've also been a little more involved with the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteers Group, and wrote 100 words about Loughborough every day for 100 days. As for the blog, I promised an update to the format, and a few extra interesting pages, but in reality I've been a bit side-tracked by other things, so this hasn't materialised. Never mind, you still seem to enjoy reading some of my posts, so here's the usual end-of-year review - the most popular posts and pages, the least popular posts and pages, and the all-time most popular posts and pages!Your most favoured posts are:* Coming in at 10th place, was Swithland Slate in Local Churchyards

Sunday, 17 December 2017

Perhaps 17th December is a little too soon to be blogging about what 2018 might bring, but I thought it might be an idea to give some advance warning that 2018 is going to be looking back 100 years, to the Representation of the People Act (6th February), which led to an increase from 8 million folk being allowed to vote, to about 21 million.

Over on the UK Parliament website, they explain that only 58% of adult men had the vote prior to 1918, this being restricted to property and landowners, and excluded many members of the armed forces who might not have been resident in Britain for the full 12 months before an election.The Representation of the People Act gave the vote to all men over the age of 21, all male armed forces personnel over the age of 19, and women of property, over the age of 30 were also given the vote. Nevertheless, there was still inequality which was finally sorted with the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 (2nd July), when all women over the age of 21 were enabled to vote. A couple of pages from the 1918 Act are available here.Leicester have been fortunate enough to have been awarded some money to use for celebratory and commemorative events in the coming year, along with 6 other cities - Manchester, Leeds, Bolton, Bristol, London and Nottingham. A prominent Leicester Suffragette was Alice Hawkins, who died in 1946, and in whose honour a new statue is being sculpted and will probably be erected in Leicester's new Market Square in February 2018. There's some more information about the sculptor here, and a bit more about the location here. There's plenty of information out there about Alice, like this comprehensive website, and a book about the lady in question: Whitmore, Richard (2007). Alice Hawkins and the Suffragette movement in Edwardian Leicester. Breedon Books. There's also an interesting website in the making on which we'll be able to search for local events during 2018.Talking of local - well, this is a Loughborough-focussed blog, after all - we had our own Suffragettes in Loughborough, Nora and Kathleen Corcoran, daughters of Dr Corcoran. There's a bit more information on them by Mike Shuker in East Midlands History and Heritage, Issue 3, July 2016, pp. 17-19, and an article in the Loughborough Echo of March 2016. I believe there is some connection between the sisters and a fire at the Red House on Burton Walks - oops, better not mention the Red House, about which I was going to blog, ummm, over a year ago (sorry).Anyway, next year will see many events taking place in Loughborough in commemoration of the Suffragettes and their protests, including exhibitions, talks and other special moments.

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Sunday, 10 December 2017

This morning I was due to go out on a walk around the town centre with a group of folk to look at our Art Deco heritage. However, it was too snowy for standing around observing and recording buildings so I went out for a bit of a walk around town on my own - well, not on my own, I had my camera with me! Here's some of what I saw:

I started my journey in Queen's Park, always a beautiful place, but even more atmospheric in the snow

Then I walked through the Market Place. The sockman was obviously enjoying the festive season, but shouldn't that be yellow cross-gaiters??

And I've seen some sights in my time, but never reindeer here before!

From here I walked over to the older part of town, where the Christmas trees looked very, ummm, Christmassy

And the real trees looked stunning!

The Swithland slate gravestones in the churchyard were either buried, or peeking out above the snow

Making my way back along Baxter Gate, the snow added a certain romance to the area, and the snowman was clearly enjoying his tea break!

Back through the Market Place again, where folk were singing and dancing in the, ummm, snow!

And the Christmas tree was listing towards Angel Yard!

Zhengs looked particularly bright and cheerful.

But by this time the pavements were beginning to get rather slushy

At the top of New Street, the trees were making their mark on the snow

And around the corner from the Blacksmith's Arms, the area around Brown's (did this used to be a dairy??) looked almost unrecognisable!

And nearby roads looked quite pretty.

And the only Art Deco building I photographed was along Baxter Gate

That's it for now folks!

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Sunday, 3 December 2017

So, I still haven't tracked down that recent research I did, mostly because I've been a bit busy of late. Last night I went along to the Loughborough Archaeological and Historical Society meeting at which Ian Porter talked about his 200-mile walk to Tiverton, in commemoration of the same walk undertaken by about 150 Loughborough folk when they followed John Heathcoat to Tiverton to start a new life. You can read more about this - Luddites, Heathcoat and the Tiverton connection - over on the Old Rectory Museum and LAHS blog, where I've guest posted.A couple of weeks ago I was in Newark, visiting the Civil War Centre. The permanent Civil War exhibition was great, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the medical exhibition, with its video of the way things used to be done. Also, there was a fantastic display over about 5 rooms, covering the life and work of T.E. Lawrence, relevant to Newark because I believe he was stationed there for a while after WW1. I must admit to not knowing much about him before visiting this exhibition, but as is often the case, his name came up in a number of places over the next week or so, and previously I probably wouldn't even have noticed.One piece of research I've been re-visiting over the last couple of days is the history of the Blacksmith's Arms pub, which used to be called The Black Boy. You can guess that this pub name has now popped up in my world on several occasions since Thursday, including the news that the Black Boy in Leicester is again being proposed as flats. There's an interesting set of photos over on the Derelict Places website.Yesterday I spent the day in Lincoln and came across a lovely little bakery I'd not seen before. I couldn't resist the look of the bread, so went in to buy a loaf. 20 minutes later I emerged, having had the courage to ask the owner about the origin of the name. It was an interesting story, something to do with a path that pigs used to walk along, and when the grass grew too long it used to tickle their tummies. Here's the story as they've told it on their website. Going out on a limb here, but was this how Ticklebelly Park got its name? Or is its origins more likely to come from similar pasts as talked about in these webpages:http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2239.10;wap2http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7812254.stm

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

About Me

Been working in libraries for 37 years; public libraries for two years, followed by a special library for two years, and then academic libraries for the remainder! One of the highlights of my career was teaching myself html coding way back in 1995. Trying to re-create that high with a blog, a wiki, and other social media tools, including cataloguing my home book collection using librarything! Excited to have completed a local history course with OUDCE and to shortly be a published author with Amberley.